


Restless Nights and Starry Skies

by messingaround



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Loneliness, Nightmares, PTSD, Sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-14
Packaged: 2019-02-02 01:37:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12717051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/messingaround/pseuds/messingaround
Summary: Steve Harrington has nightmares almost every night. Collapsing tunnels and demodogs plague his mind. He hopes for a day when his heart doesn't ache from being alone.





	Restless Nights and Starry Skies

**Author's Note:**

> Yes this is a completely self-indulgent fic (but let’s be honest that’s what fic writing is) anyway lately I’ve fallen off the writing wagon and I’ve found out the best way to get my groove back and be able to write my story again is to write something that is fun. Blah blah blah none of that matters xD I might write another part to this but I'm not sure yet and I might write more Stranger things fics but again I'm not sure yet. Tell me what you think!  
> Love,   
> Mess

The tunnels shake. Steve yells for them to ‘RUN!’ He wants all the kids to be in front of him, but he ends up more in the middle. Lucas and Max are ahead of him. Dustin is by his side which means there’s one kid missing. Steve quickly looks behind him to see Mike keeping up with them. Good. They get to a part of the tunnels that is covered in vines. No one loses their footing, luckily. The tunnels shake again, but only slightly this time. Then there’s a scream. Steve looks back to see Mike on the ground with a vine snaking up his leg. Steve moves, ready to run to Mike and get him free from the vine. There’s another scream before he gets to Mike. He looks to the front of the pack to see Max being pulled into the wall by the vines. Dustin and Lucas are trying to pull her free. Steve looks back to Mike to see him almost covered in vines. Yet another scream assaults his ears. This time when his head swivels around he sees Dustin on the ground with a demodog on top of him. The tunnels shake again but this time they start to crumble.

   He killed them. He killed the kids. Four innocent children dead because of him. Steve had one job. One fucking job. Keep the children safe and he couldn’t even do that. He shouldn’t have let them into the tunnels. He should have made them get back in the car. He should have stood his ground. Instead he gave in. They wanted to help their friend and he let them. How could he let them? Now they are dead. Four children are dead, and their bodies are going to rot underground. Their parents will never know what happened to them. Just like Barbara’s.

    Steve jolts upright in his bed. His heart is pounding, his breathing is heavy, and his body is covered in a thin layer of cold sweat. He tries to even his breathing. Each time he breathes in he counts to five then breathes out. Steve looks at his alarm clock it’s three in the morning. He rests his head on his hands. He’s exhausted. His body is tired, and his mind is tired, but the nightmares won’t stop. Knowing that he won’t be able to go back to sleep because now he’s restless. His eyes trail to the nail bat that’s leaning against his closest. He stands up and pulls his shirt off then wipes his sweaty face with it.

    Grabbing a towel from the hall closet he goes to the bathroom and turns the shower on. He takes a quick shower then gets dressed for the day. Once he’s dressed he finishes the math homework he pushed off last night. Then he goes downstairs to the kitchen makes himself scrambled eggs and toast. When he finishes his second cup of coffee he makes fresh squeezed orange juice for his mom.

   He stares at his empty mug as images of his nightmare flash through his mind. All the children dead and it was his fault. They aren’t dead though. They are all alive. Dustin, Mike, Lucas, Max and even Will are all okay and alive. Steve washes his mug then goes back to his room and picks up his nail bat.

~~~~~~~~

    First stop, Dustin’s house. He’s become a crazy person and he knows it, but he doesn’t care. He must make sure. He needs to know. He needs to double check. Steve gets out of his car and goes to the window that he knows looks into Dustin’s room. The blinds are open, and he can see Dustin sleeping. The curly haired boy’s chest is rising and falling at a gentle pace. Next stop is Lucas’.

    It’s tricky to check on Lucas because his room is on the second floor. Steve’s basically a professional at climbing trees. He climbs the tree that looks into Lucas’s room to see the boy sleeping. He checks on Mike, then Will, then Max. Steve checks on all of them. The only one he doesn’t check on is Jane or El, he’s still not sure what she likes to be called. The girl loves with Hopper and if Hopper ever saw Steve looking into his daughter’s window then he knows he would be six feet under in less than six seconds. Also, if any of the kids can protect themselves it’s her.

     Steve drives around the town. He looks at all the closed store fronts. The drives past the arcade and the middle school. Then he drives to the high school where he will have to be in about two hours. He parks in the parking lot. The nail bat is in the passenger seat. He wishes he felt better. He wishes that going to check on the kids and seeing them alive and breathing made him feel better, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t make him feel better because he knows that he’ll being doing this again. If it isn’t tomorrow night, then it will be the next or the next. The nightmares will continue to plague him, and he will continue to worry about them. He can’t even imagine the nightmares that the ids have. They’re so young and have been through so much already.

     He wishes he had someone to talk to about all this shit. Last time this happened he had Nancy. Now all he has is people staring at him as he walks down the halls. Steve knows what they think. His idiot classmates think that he stays up all night partying in other towns and hooking up with random chicks in some pathetic attempt to get over Nancy. He doesn’t even nesscarily want to even talk about everything he just wants someone that understands. He wants someone to look t him and see the dark bags under his eyes and know why they are there. He wants to lay next to someone and hold their hand. He wants to not feel so alone.

   Steve is alone. He doesn’t have Nancy anymore. Jonathan has Nancy. Jonathan has someone to care about him and hold his hand and understand the bags under his eyes. He knows he should hate Jonathan. That he should be mad and want to punch Jonathan, but he isn’t, and he doesn’t. Hating Jonathan isn’t going to get him Nancy back. Punching Jonathan isn’t going to make Nancy love him.

     He stares at his knuckles. They aren’t bruised anymore. He grips the steering wheel and wonders if he’ll ever not feel lonely again. Steve looks back up. He stares at the school. The school looks so dark and small when the sun isn’t up yet. The school looks like how Steve feels, meaningless. He stares at the school and feels his future slipping away. He wants to go to college, but he knows that he isn’t going to get accepted anywhere. He’s going to end up working for his dad and then one day taking over the business. Steve sighs heavily as he heads back home.

~~~~~~~~

     Steve leaves the nail bat in his car. He hangs his head as he opens the front door. The sound of someone clearing their throat draws him out of his pity party. He looks up to see his father sitting in his chair in the living room, the one lamp is on.

    “Where have you been sneaking out to?”

      “I – nowhere.” He shrugs but his chest tightens.

   He thought that his parents had no idea about him sneaking out.

     “Don’t lie to me Steve. At least four times a week you sneak out at ungodly hours of the morning? Did you really think I wouldn’t know that my own son was leaving the house?”

    “I was always quiet,” Steve mutters while looking at his shoes, “and I haven’t been going anywhere. I just can’t sleep so I go for a drive.”

      “You’ve been sneaking off to see Nancy.” His dad states curtly.

   Steve’s head snaps up. “No. Nancy and I broke up.”

       His dad tilts his head, from surprise. “Oh. Well. Who have you been seeing then?”

   “I told you. No one. I just can’t sleep. I’m just stressed about college acceptance.” It’s not a total lie.

       “Son, you don’t have to worry about that. I told you that you already have a job at the business.”

   “Yeah. I know.” Steve’s heart feels like it’s pumping too slow.

      “Go get some sleep. You need it,” His dad stands up and turns the light off, “and no more sneaking out.”

     Steve goes back to his room. He takes his shoes off but doesn’t change his clothes. He lays on his bed, flat on his back and rests his hands on his stomach. Steve stares at his ceiling. It’s white but the kind of white that’s dull from being painted on years ago. The white paint has started to crack and chip. He stares at the cracks and tries to think about anything. He’s tired of thinking and overthinking. He wants to feel blank, like his ceiling. He stares at his blank ceiling and imagines that it’s the night sky. He invasions the stars and different hues of blue. He thinks about the constellations that his mom taught him when he was young.

     He looks to the side at his gray walls. The walls are basically empty. There’s nothing of value or importance on them. He has a few pictures around the room but not many. He’s never really cared about his room because he never spent much time in it, so he didn’t bother to put posters up or decorate in any way. He hadn’t even picked the color for his room. His mom picked it. She said that gray was calming and would help him sleep. The only thing that would help him sleep now would be an elephant tranquilizer.

~~~~~~~~

     His alarm wakes him up. He hits the off button, probably too hard. Steve doesn’t even remember falling asleep which doesn’t matter because it doesn’t feel like he got any sleep. He rolls off the bed and puts his shoes on then slips his jacket on.

   After he makes himself a to go cup of coffee he kisses his mom’s cheek and tells her that he will see her after school. He doesn’t grab his backpack as he leaves the house. Steve reminds himself that he doesn’t pick Nancy up anymore. He starts driving to school. His mind is blank. He thinks about nothing except his dull white ceiling. He’s one block away from school when he pulls an illegal U-turn.

    Steve drives away from the school. He drives away from his house. He drives away from Hawkins. He drives with nowhere in mind.

~~~~~~~~

   Two hours later he’s four towns over in a diner eating a shitty omelet and drinking coffee that tastes like stale water. He leaves a good tip because it’s not the waitresses fault the food is terrible. Just as Steve is about to get back in his car and maybe head home he looks across the street to see a paint store.

   He walks into the store and is meet with florescent lights that are too bright and a plethora of colors. He starts wondering down the aisles. His eyes are drawn to the blues. It’s when he is standing in front of a section dedicated only to dark blues that someone comes up to him.

     “Is there anything I can help you with?” A guy that’s a little older than him asks.

   “Um. Yeah, actually,” Steve picks up two paint chips then walks to a different display and picks up three more, “I need these colors.”

     “Okay. Come with me.”

   Steve follows the guy to the to the front of the store. He’s asked how much of each color he wants and want finish he wants them in. Steve doesn’t know the answer to either question.

      Almost two hours later Steve has seven paint cans, a multitude of brushes and rollers, trays, and traps all loaded into his trunk. He heads home with a plan.  When he gets home neither of his parent’s cars are in the driveway which makes the plan easier. He parks on the curb and starts carrying everything into his room. He gets the ladder from the garage and starts setting everything out in his room. He changes into old clothes and blasts Pink Floyd.

~~~~~~~~

      He skips school the next day as well and finishes painting his ceiling. Steve looks up and smiles at the starry night he painted on his ceiling. It’s four different shades of blue and there’s six different constellations. He packs everything up and takes it all out to the garage.

    Steve is closes his garage door and turns around to see Dustin on his bike panting.

  “Mike said that Nancy said you haven’t been to school in two days.”

     “And?” Steve doesn’t understand why Dustin is here.

   “And that’s not normal. I wanted to make sure you were still alive.”

     Steve chuckles and walks over to the kid and puts his hand and his head to shake it around a little. “I’m fine kid. Just wasn’t feeling good.”

    Dustin looks at him. The kid narrows his eyes in suspicion. Steve knows that Dustin knows he was lying but it doesn’t matter. He starts walking back to his front door.

    “You aren’t alone Steve.”

  He turns around but Dustin already peddling down the street. Steve grips the doorknob so tightly that his knuckles turn white. He wants what Dustin said to be true but it’s not. The kids have each other. Nancy and Jonathan have each other. Steve has himself and sometimes he’s not strong enough by himself. Maybe he should get a cat.


End file.
